Alfred Duggan-Cronin was of Irish descent and came to South Africa to work for De Beers Consolidated Mines in 1897. They gave him a job as a security officer in one of their ‘native compounds’,and this is what might have sparked his later interest in our indigenous people.
In 1904 he bought himself a simple camera and became interested in photography. In 1919 he went to the Langeberg to photograph the San living there. Many similar expeditions followed. Between the world wars he travelled some 128 000 kilometres, making at least 18 expeditions to photograph the peoples of southern Africa.
He died in August 1954 and is buried in Kimberley, which he considered his home. The Duggan-Cronin gallery is housed in a beautiful building previously known as the Lodge. Built in 1889, it was owned by one of the wealthy citizens of early Kimberley, J. B. Currey. Later it became the property of De Beers, who generously allowed Duggan-Cronin to live and store his photographs there.
In his time he was visited by many esteemed people including Olive Schreiner, President Reitz of the OFSs, Lord Alfred Milner, General Smuts, Noel Coward and the British Royal Family.
Source: McGregor Museum Kimberley
News from the Mission
Sharing Legacies of the Past
October 14, 2009
The Alfred Duggan-Cronin and Edward S Curtis Photographs
A photography exhibition, bringing together for the first time ever the works by two renowned photographers, Alfred Duggan-Cronin and Edward Curtis, opened October 14, 2009 at the Centre for African Studies on the campus of the University of Cape Town.
The Curtis collection of Native Americans is part of a US State Department-sponsored exhibit touring the world, entitled “Sacred Legacy”, and which first opened in South Africa in the Durban Art Gallery earlier this year. The Duggan-Cronin works are on loan from the McGregor Museum in Kimberley.
| Edward S. Curtis |
| Many of the most iconic 19th-century images of American Indian peoples are the work of renowned photographer Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952), whose extensive documentation of indigenous tribal life in the United States and Canada produced compelling pictures that continue to shape popular perceptions about the Western frontier. >> More from America.gov |
Colin Fortune, Director of theMcGregor Museum happened upon the Curtis photographs in the Durban Art Gallery and put together the original concept of combining the works into one exhibition. The joint exhibition will be on show in Kimberley in 2010.
For more information contact:
Mark Canning
Public Affairs Section
U.S. Consulate Cape Town
021 702-7325